Quote:KOCHI: India on Monday launched its first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, joining the elite club of nations with the capability of designing and building a warship of this size and capability.

Defence Minister A K Antony's wife Elizabeth launched the 37,500-tonne carrier at Kochi shipyard almost four-and-a-half years after its keel was laid by the minister.

It's going to be another 1 and a half to 2 years before she is ready, but welcome to the carrier club.

Quoting WingsFan (Reply 1):So this is aircraft carrier #3 for India and the Indian navy has already ran out of names? Why not name it something else? Is there any 'lineage' between the new Vikrant and the old ?

Actually, this is carrier #4. #3 is the ex-Gorshkov INS Vikramaditya, and #2 was INS Viraat. Vikrant#1 was our first carrier, and the only one to have seen action in battle. I think it's a nice nod to a ship that a lot of people are fond of, and one that served us 36 years.

She's not fully complete. As you can see, large portions of the hull are not complete. The lower hull is completed. But the upper hull is only complted about 75% of the way from the bow back. The flight deck only covers that area of the vessel. So you still have approximately 20-25% of the upper hull and flight deck to complete.

And, of course the island is not on the vessel yet. All of that has to be complete, which will include significant portions of the innards and probably the aft section of the hanger deck, before the major weapons, sensors, and other systems can be added. They probably left the chunk of the aft flight deck off because they need a large hole in the hull to get large components inside the ship, and it was either this, or cut large holes into the hull afterwords and get whatever they need in.

I believe the Indian government was at a point where they had to launch the vessel, as the slipway Vikrant was built on was fairly small. She will probably be moved to where the rest of the work can be accomplished.

Part of the reason construction took this long was that the steel was originally planned to be procured from abroad. But that didn't work out, for several reasons. Ultimately they commissioned DMRL to come up with a warship grade steel, and the PSU plants successfully managed to produce it. This steel went into the Vikrant, and also into the P15A/P15B destroyers, P17 frigates and P28 corvettes. In the process they shaved off about Rs.1500crore off the cost, compared to the original price of imported steel, but at the cost of the additional time.

The island and sections of the angled deck have already been seen in pictures elsewhere. They need to be installed after this float out. CSL doesn't have the luxury of letting this hull occupy the drydock continuously - it's better to install those off dock, now that the basic hull is complete.

Keep in mind this is a pretty big carrier for a first local effort - it's larger than anything the RN has had built, except for the QE2 class under construction, for example.

Progress on this ship has been pretty good - there's quite significant progress since the pics from last year, and in a year both the angled deck and island might be in place, for a more complete look. The next hurdle is likely to be sensor and comm integration. The P15A ships are delayed for this reason - the ships are largely complete, but the collaborative weapons suite development (with Israel ?) is not.

Quoting ThePointblank (Reply 5):I believe the Indian government was at a point where they had to launch the vessel, as the slipway Vikrant was built on was fairly small. She will probably be moved to where the rest of the work can be accomplished.

Cochin first floated her out from the building hall in 2011, they have been working on her whilst she's been floating for 2 years now.

Any info on the running gear? Fixed or controlled pitch props? This sounds a lot like a USN cruiser/destroyer plant (same 4x LM2500 setup) which is fine for a sleek destroyer looking for speed but not for a carrier.

My concern with this kind of setup is it will be a fuel hog and they'll have to become very reliant on unrep for any kind of blue water ops. IMHO they should of went with a CODAG setup like the Makin Island (almost the same displacement) did so she could cruise on diesels and use the turbines for sprints, saves a ton of fuel.

Heck I'm sure if they asked us we would of sold them the entire engineering plant...

Quoting BladeLWS (Reply 12):Any info on the running gear? Fixed or controlled pitch props? This sounds a lot like a USN cruiser/destroyer plant (same 4x LM2500 setup) which is fine for a sleek destroyer looking for speed but not for a carrier.

It is apparently and indigenous gearbox they are using, no word on the props. The running gear was designed in collaboration with an Italian shipyard, Fincantieri.

Quoting BladeLWS (Reply 12):My concern with this kind of setup is it will be a fuel hog and they'll have to become very reliant on unrep for any kind of blue water ops. IMHO they should of went with a CODAG setup like the Makin Island (almost the same displacement) did so she could cruise on diesels and use the turbines for sprints, saves a ton of fuel.

Apparently, the design goal was maximum speed of 28 knots, with a endurance of 7,500 nautical miles at 18 knots.

Quoting comorin (Reply 16):Anybody, what are the pros and cons of having a ski-jump vs a flat deck? Thanks.

For STOBAR carriers, it means that aircraft can take off with more payload and fuel with a ski-jump than with a regular flat deck if no catapult is available. The limitation is that if you eventually decide to install catapults, they don't work on a ski-jump. Also a ski-jump cuts into space for deck parking of aircraft, which means smaller air group.

It's always surprised me the the US LHA's weren't built with ramps, especially the new America class, I'm sure the underpowered turd F-35 needs all the assistance it can get to haul it's lardy arse into the sky.

Quoting ThePointblank (Reply 17):For STOBAR carriers, it means that aircraft can take off with more payload and fuel with a ski-jump than with a regular flat deck if no catapult is available. The limitation is that if you eventually decide to install catapults, they don't work on a ski-jump. Also a ski-jump cuts into space for deck parking of aircraft, which means smaller air group.

Quoting ThePointblank (Reply 17):Also a ski-jump cuts into space for deck parking of aircraft, which means smaller air group.

Depends on how you design the ski-jump; if you removed the ski-jump from the Queen Elizabeth class I doubt there would be any additional parking available as that would be where the cat's would be located, it's nicely illustrated in this diagram (which shows more parking on the non cat version.

Quoting comorin (Reply 16):I had a Heineken on board when she visited Madras Port in the late 60s...

I've only seen her at Bombay, after she was converted into a museum. On the Viraat, however, I once got a chance to ride up to the flight deck on one of the aircraft elevators when she was visiting Cochin.. one of the thrilling moments of my early teens..

Quoting Max Q (Reply 23):Can the F35B even use a ski jump, has this been tried ?

Just ask around. I am quite several of our F-35 'specialists' can tell you, based on their apparently vast knowledge.
A WAG would be "it could be accomplished", especially if LM oversaw the certification. Cost unknown.